Rob Mathieson, 28, and his fiancee have been planning to buy a house before they get married in May. However, the new recommendations may put a spanner in the works because Mathieson is self-employed and could struggle to obtain a mortgage without proving his income. Mathieson, who has been running his web development company in Newcastle for 15 months, said: "If the bank wanted me to produce three years of accounts it would take up to another six months to provide it. At the end of every year you have to calculate how much the business earned and it can take six months to collate that information." He says he no longer knows if he will be able to buy a house before he gets married because if he has a bad month then he won't get paid and "if you have to prove your salary to the bank it would look bad".